Electrophoresis sequencers have been provided with a gel plate, usually precisely vertically mounted, and a buffer tank at the top and bottom. On the device called the BRL Model S2, manufactured by Bethesda Research Labs, Gaithersburg, MD, the top buffer tank is part of the support against which the gel plate is clamped. The bottom tank, though removable, provides no significant contribution to holding the gel plate in place. As a result, separate clamping elements have to be individually pulled and/or rotated and released to hold the vertically oriented gel plate from tipping over. Such clamping elements are tedious and time-consuming in their use, particularly if more than four per plate are required. The tedium is enhanced by reason of the fact that, until the clamps are properly secured, the gel plate has to be manually held from tipping over.
Yet another problem with vertically positioned gel plates is that the sample solutions, as they are applied by the operator into the plate, tend to run over the shorter of the two glass plates of the plate assembly. This not only makes application of samples to the assembly tedious, but it also makes interpretation of results difficult. Such running-over has been experienced on devices such as the aforesaid BRL Model S2.